Graham Greene
(an astrological
interpretation of his chart)
March 9, 2002
compared
briefly with Hans Christian Andersen and Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
Also on this page:
HANS
CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
chart
early
childhood
phobias
died a virgin
three most famous fairy tales
GRAHAM
GREENE
chart
early childhood
pre-Oxford
Oxford (Balliol College)
milestones of later years
analysis
some good websites
ELIZABETH
KUBLER-ROSS
chart
South Node
@18 Pisces in the 4th
North
Node @ 18 Virgo in the 10th
Here are some pertinent facts to refresh your memory about the life of Graham Greene, one of the greatest writers of the last century. I've also listed a few websites at the bottom of the page that you might be interested in.
Graham Green was born October 2, 1904 at Berkhamsted, England at 10:20 am. This information comes from his baby book as quoted in the authorized biography by Norman Sherry. Below are the two volumes of the official biography.
Graham
Greene: Graham Green's official biography, Part One
Now out of print but available through amazon.com (used)
[click the image as usual to take you right there]
Graham
Greene: Part Two of the official biography
Greene died in Vevey, Switzerland on April 2, 1991 of leukemia . Let's look at the astrological timing for the major events of his life.
At 6 years of age he began public (private) school, which he dreaded and hated. AT this time
Pluto transiting Moon/Neptune in Cancer in the 8th In 1917 (age 13) and 1918 before entering St. John's Boading School, he had attacks of measles and pleurisy. His father was Headmaster. Young Graham was mercilessly teased by all the boys. He claims that one in particular drove him to a nervous breakdown and suicide attempt at 16. As a result, he took Jungian analysis from Kenneth Richmond at 16 years of age.
Also regarding St. John's Boarding School, Greene complained the rest of his life about the lack of privacy, the "filth" and bathroom stalls with no locks. All of these things are 8th house and Scorpio Rising issues. I recall a girl I read for with a Scorpio Ascendant who made the statement, "Men are always all over me like flies on s---." Unfortunately, you see she is identifying herself with s---.
His father, the Headmaster, was believed to be paranoid about boarding school homosexuality and made sure that no two boys were ever alone unsupervised. This was more or less the practice at the time throughout England.
All during this period, Pluto was transiting his Moon/Neptune in Cancer in the 8th house. This would produce morbid fears under almost any conditions. Any person with this transit would need a good deal of emotional support and understanding. Saturn was also right at Greene's Midheaven making his suffering impossible to hide. He would be considering a type of scapegoat or stand-in for frustrations which should have been directed to this father. In a certain sense, this also says symbolically that he was starting to live the phobia of his father. In other words, he had it coming and going. He was treated the way he was largely because of his father. He may or may not have been afraid of being a latent homosexual but in the eyes of his classmates he was still responsible for the reign of terror at the school because it would seem his schoolmates fused the image of the father and the son. The father's phobia now becomes not only the son's phobia but the son. This particular type of con-fusion resulting from project would be a Moon/Neptune in the 8th house problem. This would also be a rather ideal time for psychoanalysis.
Rising Sign Scorpio (Ascendant) In this regard, the role of a Scorpio Ascendant must be mentioned. Anyone with a dark motive will project onto a Scorpio Ascendant and in many cases, the person him/or/herself finally begins to believe it. The amount of homosexual phobia coming at Greene from all sides is rather overwhelming and is both welcomed and devoured by the Scorpio Ascendant. Water sign Ascendants (Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces) will tend to "be" or take the shape or form of whatever the other person wants them to be -- what lies beneath the Ascendant is a very different matter. In the case of Scorpio, it is usually very darl images that are projected and conformed to.
Graham Greene on left, shown here with his 3 brothers and 2 sisters. The women in his family tended to be especially tall, his mother over 6'. This was scanned from the book and isn't very good. Sorry!
during
Oxford
Two years later, Greene was off to Oxford for the autumn term of 1922
to Balliol College. He was an Old Boy.
He has been quoted several times as saying that he was drunk the entire time. It was rather the thing to do back then. A common joke was to say that you were AT Oxford to learn how to drink as a gentleman (hold your liquor)
In March 1923 he made his first important literary contact, Dame Edith Sitwell, who said:
"I am not used to people understanding anything whatever about my poetry, excepting perhaps an occasional image, and that only partially, as they do not understand the spiritual impulse behind the image. You [Graham Greene] have understood it all. Your comprehension appears to be absolutely complete" in a letter dated 19 June 1923 as quoted in the official biography. (p. 141)
Dame
Edith between her
brothers Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell
milestones
in later years
Around 1924,
at the age of 20, Graham Greene fell in love for the first time. The object
of his affections was Gwen Howell, the nursery governess of the Greene
family at the time when they were on summer holiday. Ms. Howell was promised
to another.
Partly from a broken heart and partly from boredom (yes!), Greene played Russian roulette for real during the year 1924 while back at Oxford University. Later he writes of the 'odd schizophrenic life' he led in the autumn term at Oxford, 1924.
His biographer continues, "... but then few young men would have had, like jugglers, so many balls in the air; few would have had the mental, physical and intellectual energy to have kept so many activities going at the same time." (p. 161)
He studied Catholicism in the early months of 1926 and officially converted in March 1926.
On October 15, 1927, he married his second love, Vivien Dayrell-Browning. They met when she criticized one of this articles for the Oxford Outlook, mentioning worship of the Virgin Mary. Vivien wrote in criticism that "one did not worship the Virgin Mary, one venerated her, the correct term being hyperdulia."
analysis
mutable t square My interpretation of the chart begins: The first thing to notice is that Greene has a mutable T square in mixed houses (3 planets that square each other).
his north
node is at 18 Virgo in the 10th
Uranus
in Sagittarius in the 2nd, Pluto in Gemini in the 7th and Mercury in Virgo
in the 10th. The North Node is at 18 Virgo and conjunct Mercury in the
10th house so, although it is not a planet, it is part of the T squarere.
The mutable signs are the communication signs. Obviously this man has
a way with words, but words also have a way with him!
moon conjunct Neptune in Cancer in the 8th Graham Greene has Moon conjunct Neptune in Cancer in the 8th house. Even his official biography mentions that he has latent mediumistic qualities. His chart compares with, for example, that of Swiss psychiatrist, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross.
You may not know this but Elisabeth Kubler-Ross went through a period of spiritualism much to the dismay of her more traditional comrades. In 1979 she became involved with someone who practiced the occult. She talked her husband into buying property where they could do healing with psychodrama, sex, trances and seances. When she finally "came to her senses", it had nevertheless cost her her 21 year marriage. Perhaps this is because Kubler-Ross has Saturn in Scorpio in the 8th retrograde, an equally important 8th house emphasis but very negative. In her case, it was playing with power and she got burned.
her north node is at 16 Cancer in the 5th conjunct Sun/Pluto
Her dabbling in the occult occurred while Uranus was transiting her Saturn in the 8th. Interestingly, Uranus rules Aquarius and she has Jupiter in Aquarius in the 12th house. The ruler of Aquarius, her natal Uranus, is at 29 Pisces, the fixed star Scheat (death by drowning). These planets and locations would indicate that perhaps the divorce was long overdue and quite fortunate.
It would also indicate that Uranus transiting Saturn in the 8th brought very serious "endings", grievous, perhaps tragic and unalterable loss. I suspect that what was lost and grieved was a certain innocence about the powers she was experimenting with and the price to pay, matters that are well known to anyone who has seriously studied the occult because there is a long period of preparation where these issues are addressed.
This chart is from my AstroDatabank software. Also compare this chart and Queen Elizabeth's chart, also having Saturn in Scorpio in the 8th.
Jupiter in Aries in the 5th Graham Greene's first love was his parent's governess for the young children, Gwen Howell. She was engaged to someone else while working for his family and was an impossible love. His second love, Vivien, seems to have been very remarkable only in one thing ... her ability to play had to get. Greene's relatives consistently imply that they can't see what it was he found so special in her, but with Jupiter in Aries in the 5th, perhaps it is the thrill of the chase and just that.
The 5th house has to do with romance, as opposed to marriage (the 7th) and friendship (the 11th) and if it means love, it means the kind of love most of us experience as teenagers, the kind that Leos tend to favor their lives long, one thing that makes them so special! It's called being in love with love.
Jupiter is the jovial, enthusiastic and expansive planet and in Aries, it is directed toward the conquest aspect of love and perhaps the athletic side of sex. Greene certainly had depth and soulful qualities, as seen in his loaded 8th house, but this 5th house is good for The Chase! Greene was too sensitive to go after someone truly impossible, I think -- I mean someone out of his class, like in courtly love. But Vivien was a good focus for this aspect since she was stubborn and uncommunicative about why she wasn't particularly interested in him and it allowed him to project all the saintly and soulful qualities of the 8th house right onto her.
Greene's biographer believes that if the prize is big enough, meaning impossible enough, he'd go for it. Since Jupiter is the ruler of 2/3 of his Tsquare, you'd excpet it to thrown him around a bit, too, which it did
Compare this with the chart of another man who loved to distraction women he could not have, Hans Christian Andersen. In fact, in the extreme, it is historically acknowledged that this man died a virgin.
[Painting
by Christian Albrecht Jensen (1836)]
compliments of cgfa
HANS
CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
Hans Christian Anderson never had his loves requited and, alas, with no
fun-loving jovial 5th house to compensate.
south node at 21 Cancer;
north node at 21 Capricorn (intercepted) Andersen would have needed the
comfort and support of family very badly and was especially wounded by
the kind of family he was born into
You can imagine the frustration of the 8th house Mars in Leo if you realize that this man died a virgin. There is no doubt about that, incidentally. All biographers agree. They also agree that he was not homosexual.
died
a virgin
What makes a man a lifelong virgin? Take a moment to look at the chart
and see if you can answer this question in some plausible way. I will
finish up with my explanation at the end of this section.
Jupiter in Sagittarius in the 12th Andersen's Jupiter is in its own sign, Sagittarius, but it is lost in the 12th house, retrograde, where it sends out everlasting hope that dies in the ocean of the 12th house, never to be fulfilled.
Aries Sun and Mercury opposite Saturn and Uranus Andersen's Aries Sun and Mercury are opposite Saturn and Uranus in the 9th. They are both retrograde and afflicted. This would indicate many thoughts about love but nothing to ground it, which his 4th house Moon in Taurus must have so much wanted. Where he could have found hope, these planets in the 9th lead to feelings of guilt and use logic instead to punish himself -- easy to justify why no one would want him, he's ugly or poor or his relatives are the scandal of the town -- that sort of reasoning which crushes all hope.
Venus in Pisces in the 3rd Venus in Pisces is probably a very big culprit here as it leads in the 3rd house, especially, to impossible dreams. It's easier to write about love than to risk rejection in the real world.
South Node in Cancer intercepted in the 7th Also Andersen's south node in Cancer is intercepted in the 7th house, making marriage an illusive "notion" and his dreams of a family (north node in Capricorn also intercepted in the 1st) equally difficult to manifest.
We know that the jury is still out on the meaning of intercepts, but here is a good example of an important meaning for one. It makes his virginity all the more plausible.
three
most famous fairy tales
The three most famous of Andersen's fairy tales, which gave him fame and
fortune for the times, were The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor's
Clothes and The Red Shoes. But one that more likely describes
his accursed love life is The Little Mermaid (NOT Walt Disney's
version.)
early
childhood
Andersen was born in a one room house in the slums, of Odense, Denmark.
His father, a cobbler, went insane and died when he was 11. His paternal
grandmother had a reputation as a pathological liar and her husband was
known as the town lunatic.
Jupiter in Sagittarius in the 12th; Saturn/Uranus in Libra in the 9th You have to dig a little to see this in Andersen's chart, but Jupiter in the 12th indicates ancestral matters concerning truth telling. Remember in Shakespeare's plays, only the fool can tell the truth. Perhaps some of his relatives were seeing and telling the truth but considered crazy, as perhaps village seers or knowers who nonetheless were ostracized. There is some indication with Saturn/Uranus in Libra in the 9th house that his people were at any rate outside the norm. Their truth was not everyone else's truth. This makes it all quite a bit more complicated. It would seem with this placement that the family has trouble distinguishing turth from expediency and might tend to use truth for some political end (Neptune in Scorpio in the 11th) or to control to the point of pathological lying (Saturn/Uranus in Libra in the 9th).
The 3rd house Andersen had a beautiful soprano singing voice as a boy and loved to sing. He went to work in a local factory at a young age to help his family. He stopped singing when, at the age of 14, his coworkers pulled down his pants to see if he was a girl. This incident occurred in 1819 as Uranus/Neptune transited his Ascendant, Saturn was on the door to his 3rd house and Pluto was conjunct his Venus in Pisces in the 3rd. It would seem that not only was he terribly confused about his identity, though not necessarily sexually, but also he was attacked at a particularly vulnerable time, with Pluto on his late degree Pisces Venus in the 3rd.
Pluto transiting Venus in Pisces in the 3rd I've noticed Venus/Pluto present in men who experience difficulty during adolescence to the extent that they later shut down, such is the intensity of their desire and their despair at ever being able to fulfill it. Boys with this signature can be excellent mediums during adolescence and it is often found in the charts of excellent young vocalists who have a double trauma at adolescence wondering if their voices will withstand the shock of puberty as well as dealing with the hormonal and social changes of that age.
I am willing to speculate that if Andersen had brothers and sisters it was actually one of them who was the ringleader. At any rate, it affected his voice in a number of ways (Saturn entering the 3rd). On the one hand, he stopped singing for good. On the other, not being able to speak for himself, due to shyness, he found his "voice" in writing.
Moon in Taurus in the 4th Andersen's terminal shyness is also a factor of the Moon in Taurus. It is not generally remembered that Taurus is the most introverted sign of all and his Moon is buried in the depths of the 4th house as well.
All his life Andersen was called things like "Scarecrow" and "Skinny". You might compare his chart with Lincoln's as they seem to have had a similar physical condition. Click here.
Andersen's loves were all impossible crushes, the most famous being his devotion to Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale. She spoke of him like a brother and his devotion was not returned. He was absolutely devastated when she married in 1852. Pluto, Saturn and Uranus were piled up at the bottom of his chart, near his Moon. Andersen was buried under the weight of his own misery, failure and that of his ancestors.
phobias
and fears
Andersen has lifelong fears, phobias and was intensely hypochondriacal.
He had morbid fears of being burned alive (Jupiter in Sagittarius in the
12th ... perhaps he was burned alive as a female in a past life for his
religious teachings ;-) and also of being buried alive -- perhaps Pluto
in Pisces in the 2nd. That is an extremely uncomfortable Pluto. If you
can't feel stable in the 2nd house, where can you feel stable? Pluto in
Pisces in the 2nd is almost a symbolically perfect description of Hades
and Lord of the Dead, Pluto -- you can imagine fissures opening up in
the earth and Pluto reaching up to pull you down by your ankles. The Taurus
Moon in the 4th is also a signature for premature burial.
In 1864 Andersen's health began to decline. Jupiter was on his natal Neptune in the 12th, Pluto was on his Taurus Moon in the 4th. Uranus was on his Descendant, Saturn was at the midpoint of his Saturn/Uranus in Libra in the 9th and his progressed Ascendant was at his natal Pluto in Pisces in the 2nd. You can be sure his fears of premature burial and fire were being activated at the same time that he had less resources than usual to throw against it. He got a bad case of bronchitis and then liver cancer -- liver is ruled by Jupiter. Jupiter -- you may not know this -- is much more often than not a fator in death charts,as if death were a benefic release, something to celebrate, a setting free from the body.
I really look to the Neptune transiting his natal Jupiter in Sag in the 12th as the signifying of his death. He died peacefully in bed reading a "dear John" letter a woman had written him 15 years previously. No one ever read the letter. It was buried with him.
Andersen's north node is at 21 Capricorn. In case you didn't know how shy Capricorn is, here is a good example. Also it is intercepted in the first house, which makes it very difficult to get to. Andersen was ridiculed for his small pale eyes and big nose. Like Abraham Lincoln, his feet and hands seemed to be too big in proportion to the rest of his body. He knew what he was talking about when he wrote The Ugly Duckling, one would imagine.
I think the reason for his virginity was not that he lacked desire. Anyone with Mars in Leo in the 8th house has an abundance of lust and affect. But the intercepted Capricorn in the first house is extremely withdrawn and the corresponding Cancer south node indicates that likely he felt like a girl, passive and receptive. The Venus in Pisces would make him impossibly idealistic where love is concerned. These wouldn't have kept him a virgin, though. He'd have gladly let himself be seduced (as many shy Capricorn men with Pisces do). But I think this option was out because of that proud, powerful and demanding Mars in Leo in the 8th. I think he probably had too much pride to go begging for what he wanted and compensated by refusing to take the risk on a real girl at all. His problem is more a psychological one than a conditin of terminal shyness.
Email me with your interpretations and suggestions and I'll gladly publish them here.
some
websites about Graham Greene
Tripod
enthusiast
Geocities
enthusiast
Penguin
Classics
suggested
reading
click on the books to go directly to
the amazon.com page
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
is one of the very best books I've ever read.
The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene
an excellent book
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
an excellent book
Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
I've not read this one.
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
I've not read this one -- now it's a great movie as well, starring Michael
Caine.
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